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Saturday, 19 November 2011

At 12:00pm today, March 2nd, The National Day to Defend Education, around 50 students, staff, faculty and community members gathered in the main quad of CSU Monterey Bay for the scheduled “Speak-Out” that day for students to voice their concerns. After 20 minutes of some rowdy and tribal noise-making and drumming, a couple of students called for everyone to gather around. Handouts were passed out that explained how “Chancellor Greed” continues to get paid exorbitant amounts of money to dismantle the CSU system of higher education, all the while our tuition is in a state of perpetual increase.

A couple of students gave a couple of small and rousing speeches while egging the crowd on for their opinion… and then, in the words of one student:

The only way to make the administrators who run the CSU system listen to us, is if we force them to listen! The Administration building is RIGHT THERE! Let’s march up there, sit down, and refuse to leave until our demands are met.

And that’s exactly what the collective group decided to do. They marched up to the top of the hill and preceded into the lobby of Building 1. A couple students demanded an audience with top administrators, and we happened to catch the Provost, The Dean of Students, and several other administrators.

A very lively and animated discussion transpired concerning the specific demands that were issued by a student organization called “Students for Quality Education.” The same student organization that organized the Speak Out, and last year’s March 4th rally.

Many, MANY issues were brought up concerning several issues across the board.

Many were campus specific; such as ousting Sodexo from CSUMB.

Many were concerning the processes in which democracy & shared governance are practiced and the structure of the university itself.

and of course, we continued to advocate on behalf of the students and their future (the future of California!), declaring that tuition increases are only going to further burden the students, and deny access to the very people that this University was built to serve; “The campus will be distinctive in serving the diverse people of California, especially the working class and historically undereducated and low-income populations.” In the end, the Administrators continued to repeat the same ole cadence of “join this committee, go to that meeting.” despite our repeated efforts to explain to them that we simply aren’t capable of being stretched any thinner than we already are (Most students have jobs on top of full-time enrollment at the university, which leaves little time for anything else). The students continued to reiterate that there are systemic issues and contradictions that continue to inhibit change and devalue the quality of our education in a time of economic crisis.

A compromise of sorts was made; The Administrators feel that the students (& other csumb community members) ought to address these demands through the proper avenues of shared governance, but the students feel that the processes themselves snuff any flame of real progress, that the students need to look out for their personal livelihoods, and that ultimately without the students, there is no university.Therefore, the idea was proposed for a second meeting, at the Associated Students (the Student’s elected officials & representatives who were conspicuously absent at the Speak out & Sit-in) Meeting this next Monday, March 7th @ Noon

Wednesday at our Speak out we decided to bring our concerns directly to the administration. Students, staff, faculty, and community supporters marched to the administration office and demanded to talk to the CSUMB Administration. From that meeting the administrators agreed to come to the Associated Students meeting on Monday, March 7th to discuss ways that the students, AS, and administrators could work together to meet the conc…erns of students.

Transparency · Tell the Students, Faculty, and Staff how the current budget is being spent here at CSUMB · Place a link on the website that provides a detailed model of the university governing structure

Budget Cuts, Tuition Increases, and Graduation Rates · Do not use graduation rates as a measure of the quality of education · Students are unable to graduate quickly because of annual budget cuts and tuition increases. These system-wide policies force us to work multiple jobs and take a high level of units while workloads for staff and faculty increase while their numbers decrease.

In Solidarity, From Egypt to Wisconsin to California! Democracy NEEDS Education!

Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi

I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.

You are not.

I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:

1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today

2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality

3) to demand your immediate resignation

Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.

Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.

What happened next?

Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.

This is what happened. You are responsible for it.

You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.

One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.

You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.

On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.” You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”

I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating “a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”

I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.

Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.

I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.

Sincerely,

Nathan Brown Assistant Professor Department of English Program in Critical Theory University of California at Davis

Chancellor’s message to protesters on the Quad

Dear UC Davis Students:

I am writing to you today as one who deeply appreciates and defends robust and respectful dialogue as a fundamental tenet of our great academic institution and our Principles of Community.

I sympathize with the profound frustrations so many of you have expressed during the past few days. These are truly difficult times. The current economic conditions, state budget cuts and the financial burden of rising tuition present tremendous challenges for all of us. We join you in your desire to advocate for increased state support for our university so that we can continue to provide access to the excellent education that distinguishes us as one of our nation’s leading public universities.

However, we also have a responsibility to our entire campus community, including the parents who have entrusted their students to us, to ensure that all can live, learn and work in a safe, secure environment without disruption. We take this responsibility seriously. We are accountable for what occurs on our campus. Campus policies generously support free speech, but do include limited time, place and manner regulations to protect health, safety and the ability of students, staff, and faculty to accomplish the University mission. If an unfortunate incident occurs as a result of violations of these limited regulations, we are all responsible.

We are aware that many of those involved in the recent demonstrations on campus are not members of the UC Davis community. This requires us to be even more vigilant about the safety of our students, faculty and staff. While we have appreciated the peaceful and respectful tone of the demonstrations to date, the current encampment raises serious health, safety and legal concerns, and the resources we require to supervise this encampment cannot be sustained, especially in these very tight economic times. Our resources must support our core mission to educate all of our students.

We appreciate the substantive dialogue you have begun here, and we want to offer you appropriate opportunities to express opinions, advance the discussion and offer solutions as part of the time-honored university tradition. We invite you to consider the topics you would like to present and we will work with you to sponsor a series of forums throughout our campus.

I must now ask that all tents be peacefully removed by 3:00 p.m. today in the interest of safety, respect for our campus environment and in accordance with our Principles of Community.

We look forward to a positive outcome today and to continued productive and peaceful discourse moving forward.

Clegg breaks ranks to order new review into Gary extradition

Nick Clegg yesterday broke ranks with the Government over a ‘whitewash’ review into the lopsided extradition treaty that is being used to send Gary McKinnon to America.

The Deputy Prime Minister has ordered a new inquiry into extraditions between Britain and the U.S.

His surprise move will raise hopes that Sir Scott Baker’s controversial report into extradition laws will be thrown into the bin. The report’s findings would lead to no change in extradition laws considered hugely unfair to British citizens. But the Tories will find it harder to accept the findings if they are opposed by their Liberal Democrat partners.

Backing: Mr Clegg's attack on the Asperger's sufferer's extradition treaty has been welcomed by Janis Sharp, pictured with the Deputy PM in 2009

Mr Clegg’s intervention was welcomed by the mother of Gary, the Asperger’s sufferer who is being extradited to the U.S. on computer hacking charges.

Janis Sharp said: ‘This is fantastic news and a very positive development for Gary. We all know that Nick Clegg, along with many others before they came into government, were publicly insisting that Gary must not be extradited.

‘Everyone believes that the Baker report was a whitewash and this new inquiry is an opportunity for them to belatedly keep their word – and stand up for British citizens.’

Fresh hope: Hacker Gary McKinnon faces extradition to the U.S.

The Baker review concluded that the Extradition Act was not lopsided in favour of the U.S. – despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

The U.S. requires ‘sufficient evidence to establish probable cause’ before agreeing to extradite anyone to the UK, while Britons going in the opposite direction are not afforded the same protection.

Figures released by Sir Scott showed that between January 2004 and July 2011, there were 130 requests by the U.S. for people to be extradited from the UK, compared with 54 requests from the UK to America.

The new inquiry ordered by Mr Clegg – which will be led by ex-Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell – will examine the issue again.

It will also consider the case for introducing the ‘forum bar’ in the UK.

‘Forum’ – which means people are dealt with in the country where the bulk of their crimes are committed – would have allowed Gary to be tried in the UK.

Instead he risks being bundled on a plane to America – where, experts fear, he could take his own life.

More...

Gary, 45, who searched NASA computers from his North London home looking for evidence of ‘little green men’, is facing extradition to the U.S. on computer hacking charges. His extradition, the subject of the Mail’s ‘An Affront to British Justice’ campaign, was temporarily halted by Home Secretary Theresa May last year. She is currently re-considering his case.

A source close to Mr Clegg said: ‘There is a strong view among Liberal Democrats that Baker’s findings are genuinely questionable.

This is fantastic news and a very positive development for Gary. We all know that Nick Clegg, along with many others before they came into government, were publicly insisting that Gary must not be extradited.- JANIS SHARP

‘The fear is that the Conservatives will accept the findings of the Baker review and nothing will change in the extradition arrangements between Britain and the U.S. Nick made clear his views on the treaty in Opposition and he wants a second opinion.’

Mr Clegg has ordered the review in his capacity as Lib Dem leader, rather than as Deputy Prime Minister.

The Baker review was officially commissioned by the Government so he cannot commission a second ministerial investigation.

But the fact the Lib Dem inquiry is taking place will make it harder for David Cameron to accept the Baker report’s findings. If the Prime Minister did so, it would be clear it was a Conservative decision.

Sir Menzies, a vocal supporter of Gary and the Mail’s campaign, said: ‘I am extremely pleased that Nick has given me the opportunity to consider the process by which this wrong may be righted.’

A Home Office spokesman said: ‘An independent review into the UK’s extradition arrangements was published on October 18.

‘The review panel, led by Sir Scott Baker, made a number of recommendations to the Government. We are considering those recommendations carefully and will respond in due course.’

Over 30,000 People Rally in New York City :November 17: Historic Day of Action for the 99%

Over 30,000 People Rally in New York City (NYPD estimated 32,500), including organized contingents of workers, students, and other members of “the 99%”

Actions in at least 30 cities across the country and around the world

Commemoration of 2-Months Since Birth of the 99% Movement, Festival of Lights on Brooklyn Bridge

Blockade of all Entry-Points to NYSE; hundreds participate in nonviolence civil disobedience

Sense that a powerful and diverse civic movement for social justice is on the ascent

Tens of thousands took action Thursday, November 17 to demand that our political system serve all of us — not just the wealthy and powerful. The NYPD estimated tonight’s crowd at 32,500 people, at the culmination of the day of action. Thousands more also mobilized in at least 30 cities across the United States. Demonstrations were also held in cities around the world.

"Our political system should serve all of us — not just the very rich and powerful. Right now Wall Street owns Washington," said participant Beka Economopoulos. "We are the 99% and we are here to reclaim our democracy."

Why We Can’t Comment on Marc Emery

Thank you for signing the petition "Pardon Marc Emery." We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution gives the President the authority to grant "Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States." For more than 100 years, Presidents have relied on the Department of Justice and its Office of the Pardon Attorney for assistance in the exercise of this power. Requests for executive clemency for federal offenses should be directed to the Pardon Attorney, who conducts a review and investigation, and prepares the Department's recommendation to the President. Additional information and application forms are available on the Pardon Attorney's website.

The President takes his constitutional power to grant clemency very seriously, and recommendations from the Department of Justice are carefully considered before decisions are made. The White House does not comment, however, on individual pardon applications. In accordance with this policy and the We the People Terms of Participation–which explain that the White House may sometimes choose not to respond to petitions addressing certain matters—the White House declines to comment on the specific case addressed in this petition.

How Operation Fast and Furious and a U.S. government informant benefited Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel

A Mexican army commander sent to protect a region of villages and ranches in northern Mexico from the Gulf Cartel and Zetas can describe, in detail, the profile of his assigned enemy, the country’s notorious drug cartels.

“These guys are sick in the head,” he says, gazing at the brush and mesquite from behind his aviator sunglasses, toward the camps of the “enemy.” “They follow a sick ideology, they’re animals.” Without missing a beat, he continues, “Look, there’s no jobs, the poverty is bad; there aren’t enough schools. There is nothing for these boys and the cartels offer them a job. They tell them, ‘You can have any kind of pickup truck you want,’ he says. “They get paid more than we do!”

The commander and his soldiers have staked out a lakeside park near this colonial village, providing security for the annual fishing tournament. Bureaucrats from the state tourism department and soldiers, some manning gunners mounted on military trucks, vastly outnumber the few tourists. Even so, reporters from TV Azteca prepare a promotional report about the event, an image that makes an effort to convince tourists that the “frontera chica” (small border), the nickname for this swath of the border, is secure and ready for tourists. Last year when the Gulf Cartel and Zetas launched their siege on the frontera chica, the then governor of Tamaulipas dismissed the reports of decapitations, incinerated cars and shootouts as merely a “collective paranoia.”

Such is the panorama of Mexico’s violence, a distorted battleground of propaganda, impunity and duplicity amid death. Such is the conflict in which the U.S. government has become firmly entrenched over the last four years since newly elected President Felipe Calderon launched his controversial U.S.-backed “war against the drug cartels.” The conflict has cost between 40,000 and 50,000 lives and violence has worsened with the U.S.-Mexican military deployment, according to a recent report on global violence by the Geneva Delegation. Violence in some parts of Mexico now outstrips the levels of many war zones.

Revealed: Mark Duggan was not armed when shot by police

Mark Duggan was not armed when shot by police in Tottenham on 4 August, according to the IPCC. Photograph: Rex Features

The investigation into the death of Mark Duggan has found no forensic evidence that he was carrying a gun when he was shot dead by police on 4 August, the Guardian has learned.

A gun collected by Duggan earlier in the day was recovered 10 to 14 feet away, on the other side of a low fence from his body. He was killed outside the vehicle he was travelling in, after a police marksman fired twice.

The new details raise questions about the official version of events. The shooting triggered some of the worst riots in modern British history, which began in Tottenham, north London, in response to the treatment of the Duggan family. The investigation into Duggan's death is being carried out by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), but the Guardian has learned new details of the shooting, and a much more complex picture than first revealed is emerging.

On the day Duggan was shot, there is overwhelming evidence he had obtained a firearm, and there is video supporting that. But the investigation is considering whether Duggan had a weapon in his possession when he was shot dead by the police.

The revelations raise questions for the Metropolitan police about the intelligence they had and its interpretation, the planning of the operation, tactics deployed, and the actions of its firearms officers.

The Crown Prosecution Service may have to consider if any officer should face criminal charges.

But the revelations also raise questions for the IPCC, whose public statements appeared to give a different impression of the shooting.

The IPCC had to correct the initial information it released, which came from the Met but which it adopted, saying Duggan had fired and that a bullet had lodged in a radio worn by a police officer. The IPCC later admitted the bullet was in fact most likely a ricochet from one fired by a police officer.

The day he was shot, Duggan hired a people carrier from a taxi firm. Officers from the Met's Operation Trident, which investigates gun crime within the African-Caribbean community, followed it.

Their intelligence that Duggan would obtain a firearm proved correct. A box, believed to have contained the weapon at some point, was found inside and at the back of the Toyota Estima people carrier.

Duggan was followed from an address in Hackney and one in Leyton, east London. As he entered Tottenham, police decided they would halt his vehicle and, fearing he had a weapon, decided to involve armed officers from their elite firearms unit, C019.

The new findings include:

• The weapon Duggan obtained was in a shoe box, in a sock, with a small hole cut away for the barrel.

• The weapon was a converted BBM "Bruni" self-loading pistol. It contained one bullet.

• Neither Duggan's DNA nor fingerprints have yet been recovered from the sock or the weapon. His fingerprints have been found on the shoe box, which was found in the back of the hired vehicle.

• Evidence suggests Duggan's weapon was not fired.

• Duggan appears to have known police were not just following him, but were going to stop him. At 6.05pm, some nine minutes before police say they shot him dead, he sent a BlackBerry message: "Trident have jammed me," he wrote, adding that people should look out for a maroon people carrier in which he believed officers from Trident were travelling.

• Toxicology tests indicate Duggan had some illegal drugs, namely ecstasy, in his blood stream. The effect on his behaviour, if any, is unclear.

• The vehicle was moved by police after the shooting, before independent investigators examined the scene.

Police following Duggan were from Operation Trident and believed the situation developing was "a crime in action", and were aware a relative of Duggan had been killed recently and that he might seek revenge for that.

A rival scenario detailed by a community source is that Duggan was obtaining a firearm after being attacked himself just days before.

Recent police shooting cases have shown that even where the person killed had no weapon, or it was some distance away, if officers can show they had a reasonable belief their life or that of others was in danger, they are highly likely to have a lawful defence.

Part of the reason the IPCC was set up was to have greater credibility within communities affected by police actions. But after the Duggan shooting, the dead man's relatives were critical of how they had been treated. The IPCC and police blamed each other for a failure to keep the family properly informed.

An IPCC spokesperson said: "The ongoing IPCC investigation into the death of Mark Duggan is examining a range of issues. We are providing updates and, where possible, answers to the family of Mr Duggan.

"This is a complex investigation that involves gathering information including witness statements, pathology, forensics and ballistics analysis and we have stated to the coroner that it will be completed within four to six months. We are unable to put information in the public domain until appropriate to do so. Ultimately, the evidence from our investigation will, rightly, be tested and challenged in a public forum before an inquest jury. We would urge people not to rush to judgment until they see and hear the evidence themselves."

In other high profile incidents involving death after police conduct, the first official version has proved wrong, adding to the damage and suspicion surrounding police actions.

Police insiders stress that firearms officers have a highly dangerous job, the risks and realities of which are little understood outside law enforcement circles.

In another development, it emerged police are under investigation over the weapon found where Duggan was shot, after it emerged it may have been used a week earlier in an assault by another person. The IPCC said tests suggested the gun may have been carried by another man in an assault, before somehow being transferred to Duggan.

The IPCC also announced that two Metropolitan police officers are under investigation over whether the assault was investigated properly. It was reported to police and no arrests were made immediately afterwards.

Sarah Green, commissioner of the IPCC, said: "Our investigation will consider whether all investigative lines were promptly identified and acted upon by officers from the Metropolitan police service and to what extent, if any, the conduct of this investigation may have impacted on the supply of the firearm found at the scene of the shooting of Mark Duggan."

In a statement the Met said: "Due to concerns about the quality of the investigative response the MPS has voluntarily referred the investigation to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

NAIROBI, Kenya — U.S. cables made public by WikiLeaks show that the United States warned Kenya two years ago not to launch an offensive in southern Somalia against al Qaida-allied al Shabab rebels, but a U.S. official also offered to check on the "feasibility" of a U.S. review of the plans.

Kenya went ahead with an invasion a month ago, saying it was a response to a recent series of kidnappings near the border between the two countries. But the existence of the cables undercuts Kenya's claim that the move had not been long planned.

The cables paint a contradictory picture of whether the United States encouraged Kenya's invasion of its neighbor.

Taken as a whole, they seem to lend credence to Washington's claims that it had neither encouraged nor supported the invasion. But one particularly lively cable depicts a senior U.S. official asking Kenya's foreign minister if Kenyan troops shouldn't consider trying to take Kismayo, the Shabab stronghold seaport, on their own or with the help of Somali militias, and promising the review of the plans by an American team. The tactics described in that cable match the plan Kenya appears to be trying to execute.

While reliable independent information from the ground is scarce, the Kenyan offensive appears to have stalled one month in. The military has cited heavy rains and mud for slowing its movements, but Rashid Abdi, a Nairobi-based Somali analyst at the International Crisis Group, says that the military is hesitating to proceed into Shabab territory because the Islamist group is refusing to engage the Kenyan troops openly.

"The Kenyans were hoping to fight on their terms. Al Shabab has now turned the equation," said Abdi.

Kenya could be trying to buy time in hopes of more outside assistance. Kenya has called for a blockade of Kismayo from the sea, and on Wednesday it hosted Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni and his Somali counterpart, Sharif Ahmed, to shore up regional backing of its military campaign.

A bogged-down campaign is one of the reasons U.S. officials cited, according to the cables, for opposing a Kenyan operation.

According to a cable dated Feb. 2, 2010, Johnnie Carson, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, provided Kenyan Foreign Minister Moses Wetangula with a variety of reasons that the U.S. believed a proposed Kenyan incursion could backfire during a Jan. 30, 2010, meeting in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia.

Kenyan officials had been aggressively pitching the idea over several months, the cables show, asking U.S. officials to back their plan to create a semi-autonomous buffer zone on Kenya's border with Somalia. The Kenyans vowed that not "a single Kenyan boot" would enter Somalia and that the entire operation would be conducted by Kenyan-trained Somali troops.

Carson, however, warned that the operation would be more complicated and expensive than expected. He also said such an invasion might spark conflict between Somalia's combustible clan and sub-clan networks and weaken the authority of the central government in Mogadishu.

Carson also questioned Kenya's resolve in the case of defeat or setback and wondered if its leaders were prepared to deal with discontent back home if the war turned sour.

The cable said Carson "concluded by suggesting that there shold (sic) be more conventional and convenient ways to accomplish the same end. Could, for example, the trained Somalis help Kenya to re-take Kismayo?"

According to the cable, the National Security Council's senior director for African affairs, Michelle Gavin, then expressed the United States' willingness to brainstorm other strategies with Kenya.

The Kenyan delegation, which included Kenya's minister of defense, the head of its intelligence service and the chief of its armed forces, continued to press the Americans passionately for support, with Wetangula summing up their arguments by pleading, "I may not have been as convincing as I should have been," but "the threat is real," according to the cable.

Carson ended the meeting by promising to "look into the feasibility" of sending a U.S. team to Kenya to review the plan's technical details, but he told the Kenyans that he "still maintained deep reservations" about it, the cable said.

The cable noted this was the third time Wetangula had made a personal pitch to Carson to support the plans, which would involve 2,000 Kenyan-trained Somali troops in an offensive. The end goal was to create a new semi-autonomous administration in Jubaland, the southern region of Somalia. Kenyan officials argued that Kenya's poorly secured border with Somalia was a major national security threat.

Since Kenya's invasion last month, U.S. officials have denied that the U.S. was involved in planning Kenya's offensive or was providing assistance — a position that appears to be backed by the deep skepticism the cables show U.S. officials had for the plan.

"I don't think it points to an American plot," said Roger Middleton, an analyst in London for Chatham House, Britain's premier foreign policy think tank. "For me the cables make the case a bit stronger that Kenya went on this on its own."

But Middleton also said that the United States, Britain and France now have a "begrudging acceptance" of the invasion and are likely to be providing intelligence and other covert forms of support now that the operation is underway.

"In the short term, people would be happy if Kenya succeeds and takes Kismayo. But I haven't seen a plan of what comes next. And that's the real worry," Middleton said.

The diplomatic cables show that, at the beginning of last year, Washington shared those concerns.

Kenya tried repeatedly to persuade Washington to ease its opposition to its Jubaland project. In addition to Wetangula's pitches to Carson, senior Kenyan officials pitched a number of U.S. representatives around the same time: Karl Wycoff, the deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, on Dec. 8, 2009; Alexander Vershbow, the assistant secretary of defense, on Jan. 26, 2010; and Daniel Benjamin, the ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism, on Jan. 29. All U.S. officials told Kenya that the U.S. had strong reservations about the plan, according to the cables.

The British government also was pessimistic of the plan, according to a Jan. 15, 2010, cable from the U.S. Embassy in London.

Opposition also came from Uganda, according to another cable, which said that on Jan. 31, 2010, in Addis Ababa, Ugandan President Museveni questioned Kenya's ability to wage unconventional war in Somalia, criticizing Kenya's military as a career army and asking rhetorically, "Is Kenya used to fighting like this?" Museveni also questioned the ideological commitment of Kenya's proxy Somali militias.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi offered only qualified support and said he shared U.S. concerns. "We are not enthusiastic, but we are hoping for success," he told U.S. officials on that same day, according to a separate cable.

The foreign minister of Djibouti, a small country to the north of Somalia that hosts a major U.S. military base, told the U.S. he feared Kenya's invasion could produce the same ill consequences as the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2006, which prompted Shabab to launch its insurgency in southern Somalia.

The concerted rebuff had one notable exception, however: China. A February 2010 diplomatic cable from the U.S.'s Nairobi embassy says that in January, as Kenya was feverishly pitching its Western and regional allies for support, the Chinese government gave Kenya weapons, ammunition and uniforms for use by the Somali force that Kenya was training for the task.

The Kenyan military denied support from the Chinese in its current operations. "If there is under-the-table support, I am not aware," said Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, the Kenyan military spokesman.

Chirchir also denied that China gave military support to Kenya's trained Somali militias two years ago. He would not directly respond to how Kenya's current military offensive is related to the Jubaland project as laid out in the Wikileaks cables.

"There is no such thing as the Jubaland initiative," Chirchir said. "We attacked because our tourism industry was attacked."

IA is sometimes contrasted with AI (Artificial Intelligence), that is, the project of building a human-like intelligence in the form of an autonomous technological system such as a computer or robot. AI has encountered many fundamental obstacles, practical as well as theoretical, which for IA seem moot, as it needs technology merely as an extra support for an autonomous intelligence that has already proven to function. Moreover, IA has a long history of success, since all forms of information technology, from the abacus to writing to the Internet, have been developed basically to extend the information processing capabilities of the human mind (see extended mind and distributed cognition).

.."problem solving" is largely, perhaps entirely, a matter of appropriate selection. Take, for instance, any popular book of problems and puzzles. Almost every one can be reduced to the form: out of a certain set, indicate one element. ... It is, in fact, difficult to think of a problem, either playful or serious, that does not ultimately require an appropriate selection as necessary and sufficient for its solution. It is also clear that many of the tests used for measuring "intelligence" are scored essentially according to the candidate's power of appropriate selection. ... Thus it is not impossible that what is commonly referred to as "intellectual power" may be equivalent to "power of appropriate selection". Indeed, if a talking Black Box were to show high power of appropriate selection in such matters — so that, when given difficult problems it persistently gave correct answers — we could hardly deny that it was showing the 'behavioral' equivalent of "high intelligence". If this is so, and as we know that power of selection can be amplified, it seems to follow that intellectual power, like physical power, can be amplified. Let no one say that it cannot be done, for the gene-patterns do it every time they form a brain that grows up to be something better than the gene-pattern could have specified in detail. What is new is that we can now do it synthetically, consciously, deliberately.

"Man-Computer Symbiosis" is a key speculative paper published in 1960 by psychologist/computer scientistJ.C.R. Licklider, which envisions that mutually-interdependent, "living together", tightly-coupled human brains and computing machines would prove to complement each other's strengths to a high degree:

Man-computer symbiosis is a subclass of man-machine systems. There are many man-machine systems. At present, however, there are no man-computer symbioses. The purposes of this paper are to present the concept and, hopefully, to foster the development of man-computer symbiosis by analyzing some problems of interaction between men and computing machines, calling attention to applicable principles of man-machine engineering, and pointing out a few questions to which research answers are needed. The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today.

In Licklider's vision, many of the pure artificial intelligence systems envisioned at the time by over-optimistic researchers would prove unnecessary. (This paper is also seen by some historians as marking the genesis of ideas about computer networks which later blossomed into the Internet).

Licklider's research was similar in spirit to his DARPA contemporary and protégéDouglas Engelbart; both had a view of how computers could be used that was both at odds with the then-prevalent views (which saw them as devices principally useful for computations), and key proponents of the way in which computers are now used (as generic adjuncts to humans).

Engelbart reasoned that the state of our current technology controls our ability to manipulate information, and that fact in turn will control our ability to develop new, improved technologies. He thus set himself to the revolutionary task of developing computer-based technologies for manipulating information directly, and also to improve individual and group processes for knowledge-work. Engelbart's philosophy and research agenda is most clearly and directly expressed in the 1962 research report: Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework. The concept of network augmented intelligence is attributed to Engelbart based on this pioneering work.

Increasing the capability of a man to approach a complex problem situation, to gain comprehension to suit his particular needs, and to derive solutions to problems. Increased capability in this respect is taken to mean a mixture of the following: more-rapid comprehension, better comprehension, the possibility of gaining a useful degree of comprehension in a situation that previously was too complex, speedier solutions, better solutions, and the possibility of finding solutions to problems that before seemed insolvable. And by complex situations we include the professional problems of diplomats, executives, social scientists, life scientists, physical scientists, attorneys, designers--whether the problem situation exists for twenty minutes or twenty years. We do not speak of isolated clever tricks that help in particular situations. We refer to a way of life in an integrated domain where hunches, cut-and-try, intangibles, and the human feel for a situation usefully co-exist with powerful concepts, streamlined terminology and notation, sophisticated methods, and high-powered electronic aids.

Waldrop, M. Mitchell, The Dream Machine: J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing Personal, Viking Press, New York, NY, 2001. Licklider's biography, contains discussion of the importance of this paper.

"More than a decade will pass before personal computers emerge from the garages of Silicon Valley, and a full thirty years before the Internet explosion of the 1990s. The word computerstill has an ominous tone, conjuring up the image of a huge, intimidating device hidden away in an overlit, air-conditioned basement, relentlessly processing punch cards for some large institution: them.

"Yet, sitting in a non-descript office in McNamara's Pentagon, a quiet .. civilian is already planning the revolution that will change forever the way computers are perceived. Somehow, the occupant of that office .. has seen a future in which computers will empower individuals, instead of forcing them into rigid conformity. He is almost alone in his conviction that computers can become not just superfast calculating machines, but joyful machines: tools that will serve as new media of expression, inspirations to creativity, and gateways to a vast world of online information."[1]M. Mitchell Waldrop (2001) The Dream Machine : J.C.R. Licklider and the Revolution That Made Computing PersonalISBN 0-670-89976-3

Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider (March 11, 1915 – June 26, 1990), known simply as J.C.R. or "Lick" was an Americancomputer scientist, considered one of the most important figures incomputer science and general computing history. He is particularly remembered for being one of the first to forsee modern-style interactive computing, and its application to all manner of activities; and also as an Internet pioneer, with an early vision of a world-wide computer network long before it was built. He did much to actually initiate all that through his funding of research which led to a great deal of it, including today's canonical graphical user interface, and the ARPANET, the direct predecessor to the Internet.

"More than a decade will pass before personal computers emerge from the garages of Silicon Valley, and a full thirty years before the Internet explosion of the 1990s. The word computerstill has an ominous tone, conjuring up the image of a huge, intimidating device hidden away in an overlit, air-conditioned basement, relentlessly processing punch cards for some large institution: them.

"Yet, sitting in a non-descript office in McNamara's Pentagon, a quiet .. civilian is already planning the revolution that will change forever the way computers are perceived. Somehow, the occupant of that office .. has seen a future in which computers will empower individuals, instead of forcing them into rigid conformity. He is almost alone in his conviction that computers can become not just superfast calculating machines, but joyful machines: tools that will serve as new media of expression, inspirations to creativity, and gateways to a vast world of online information."[1]

He has been called "computing's Johnny Appleseed", for having planted the seeds of computing in the digital age. Robert Taylor, founder of Xerox PARC's Computer Science Laboratory and Digital Equipment Corporation's Systems Research Center, noted that "most of the significant advances in computer technology—including the work that my group did at Xerox PARC—were simply extrapolations of Lick's vision. They were not really new visions of their own. So he was really the father of it all."[2]

Licklider was born March 11, 1915, in St. Louis, Missouri, USA.[3] He was the only child of Joseph Parron Licklider, a Baptist minister, and Margaret Robnett Licklider.[4] He displayed early engineering talent, building model airplanes. He carried on with his hobby of refurbishing automobiles throughout his life.

In 1957 he received the Franklin V. Taylor Award from the Society of Engineering Psychologists. In 1958, he was elected President of theAcoustical Society of America, and in 1990 he received the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service.[5]

In 1963, he was named Director of Behavioral Sciences Command & Control Research at ARPA. In April of that year, he sent a memo to his colleagues in which he outlined the early challenges presented in trying to establish a time-sharing network of computers with the software of the era.[6] Ultimately, his vision led to ARPANet, the precursor of today's Internet.

In 1968, J.C.R. Licklider became director of Project MAC at MIT, and a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering. Project MAC had produced the first computer time-sharing system, CTSS, and one of the first online setups with the development of Multics (work on which commenced in 1964). Multics provided inspiration for some elements of the Unixoperating system developed at Bell Labs by Ken Thompson andDennis Ritchie in 1970.

In the psychoacoustics field, Licklider is most remembered for his 1951 "Duplex Theory of Pitch Perception," presented in a paper[7] that has been cited hundreds of times,[8] was reprinted in a 1979 book,[9] and formed the basis for modern models of pitch perception.[10]

He worked on a Cold War project known as Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (better known by its acronym "SAGE"), designed to create a computer-aided air defense system. The SAGE system included computers that collected and presented data to a human operator, who then chose the appropriate response.

Licklider became interested in information technology early in his career. Much like Vannevar Bush, J.C.R. Licklider's contribution to the development of the Internet consists of ideas, not inventions. He foresaw the need for networked computers with easy user interfaces.

His ideas foretold of graphical computing, point-and-click interfaces, digital libraries, e-commerce, online banking, and software that would exist on a network and migrate wherever it was needed.

Licklider played a similar role in conceiving of and funding early networking research, most notably the ARPAnet. He formulated the earliest ideas of a global computer network in August 1962 at BBN, in a series of memos discussing the "Intergalactic Computer Network" concept. These ideas contained almost everything that the Internet is today.

His paper The Computer as a Communication Device, Science and Technology, April 1968, illustrates his vision of network applications, and predicts the use of computer networks to support communities of common interest and collaboration without regard to location.

Licklider submitted the paper Televistas: Looking ahead through side windows to the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television in 1967. In this paper, he describes a radical departure from the "broadcast" model of television. Instead, he advocates a two-way communications network. The Carnegie Commission led to the creation of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Although the Carnegie Commission's report explains that "Dr. Licklider's paper was completed after the Commission had formulated its own conclusions," President Johnson said at the signing of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967] "So I think we must consider new ways to build a great network for knowledge-not just a broadcast system, but one that employs every means of sending and of storing information that the individual can use."[11]

In 1960, Licklider wrote his famous paper Man–Computer Symbiosis, which outlined the need for simpler interaction between computers and computer users. Licklider has been credited as an early pioneer of cybernetics and artificial intelligence (AI).[12] Unlike many AI practitioners, Licklider never felt that men would be replaced by computer-based beings. As he wrote in that article: "Men will set the goals, formulate the hypotheses, determine the criteria, and perform the evaluations. Computing machines will do the routinizable work that must be done to prepare the way for insights and decisions in technical and scientific thinking."[citation needed]

Oral history interview with J. C. R. Licklider at Charles Babbage Institute, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Licklider, the first director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency's (ARPA) Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO), discusses his work at Lincoln Laboratory and IPTO. Topics include: personnel recruitment; the interrelations between the various Massachusetts Institute of Technology laboratories; Licklider's relationship with Bolt, Beranek, and Newman; the work of ARPA director Jack Ruina; IPTO's influence of computer science research in the areas of interactive computing and timesharing; the ARPA contracting process; the work of Ivan Sutherland.